About "evil frames" again

[mits]

Hi all,
i have a Mill2/RRS which suffers from the known evil frames problem. I've read all the posts on how to overcome this problem (i.e. empty title and it really works fine) but my question is if there is a better way on how to spot the evil frames without having to watch the captured clips on the tv. Someone was suggesting that the evil frame would look scrambled but i can't notice any difference looking at the frame-thumbnails on the timeline (even with large thumbnails).

Thanks.

(P.S. I use MediaStudio Pro 5.2)


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mits

[Nick Piercey]

Hi mits,


Sadly in my three years of Mystique220/RRS use, I never found a better way other than monitoring on a TV.

Sometimes I found them "scrambled" on the timeline, other times the "evil frames" looked perfectly normal in 1 frame timeline mode.

It was very annoying that Matrox chose not to sort this out via a further driver update.

C'est la vie!

Regards,


Nick.

[Patrick]

Mits, yes those damn "evil frames" are a nuisance. I have to agree with what Nick has reported. Sometimes corrupted frames will appear in the thumbnails on the timeline and sometimes they don't. I have a Commodore 1702 monitor connected to the RR-S and watching the video playback on it is the only reliable way I've found to locate the area of the evil frames. I then display the timeline in frame mode and locate the offending frame. If you've seen all the older posts, then you've probably read that removal of the corrupted frame does NOT correct the "vibrating" problem. It's the removal of the frame immediately before the corrupted frame which keeps the field order correct. As you've already mentioned, using the blank title overlay option instead of frame removal also works, although as you've probably noticed, the rendered "title" frames(s) have a slightly darker appearance. Just another reason I suppose to break down and get a DV capture card...

One short note- I wonder if Motion Perfect could sort out the dropped and evil frame problems we have with our analog capture cards. Read about it here:

http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum2/HTML/005270.html

[mits]

Thanks Nick & Patrick,

well i think i'll be patient and wait till i
buy my DV card (you see the cost is not on buying the card but the DV camcorder!! for example the SONY-TRV20 costs around 1700$ here in Greece)

[Patrick]

Just thought I'd add that MotionPerfect does NOT appear to help the "evil frame" problem at all. Damn...

[mits]

Hi Patrick,

You are right, i also tested Motion Perfect and it makes things worse and the rendering
time that it takes is quite long.



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mits

[Patrick]

ssn, perhaps you can elaborate on your suggestion. Are you sure your interpretation of "evil frames" is correct? (A corrupted frame that appears to switch the A/B field of a video clip which then causes a "vibration" in the rest of the video during playback on a TV.) Although I've played around with VirtualDub, I haven't had any luck improving on what I can accomplish using MSP5.2 for video capture, etc. However, if you know of a trick to easily locate true "evil frames", please share it with us.

[mad99]

I am not sure if you talk about the same problem as I think, but if, than just try to open your files with VirtualDub 1.4c and check the "Pop up extended options". After that check "Use VirtualDub routines for MJPEG..."

This corrects at least my problems ;-)

[Patrick]

mad99, I think you guys are just fooling with me now. Where the heck do you find "Pop up extended options" and "Use VirtualDub routines for MJPEG..."? I have version 1.4c and I can't see a reference to these options anywhere.

[ssn]

The best way to spot a "evil frame" is to install VirtualDub. When you have loaded your videoclip you can browse through the file using the "slider". This way you can spot the "evil frame" in seconds.

[Patrick]

Arrrgh, these friggen "evil frames" !!!

I'm in the process of finishing the first longish video I've ever done using the Mill2/RR-S. In the past year I've done a few 10 minute or less videos, but this one is about 1 hour and 15 minutes from 1 ½ hours of captured footage. There's a few dropped frames, but I can live with them. It's the evil frames that are causing me grief.

As I was editing the video, I used the blank title overlay trick to subdue the evil frames. It's a lot of work, but I used blank title overlays of one frame duration to correct the A/B field order problem that evil frames create. There were 33(!) places in the video where I did this to eliminate the "vibration" that evil frames create on the TV output.

It was with great anticipation that I used the preview function to play the entire 1 hour and 15 minute video back. I didn't sit and watch the whole thing because I've just spent the last two days watching every clip over and over, but I was hoping of course that the entire video would play back without the computer blowing up or something. I returned to the computer just before the video ended and I was REALLY choked to see the image on TV vibrating! Somewhere, somehow another evil frame had reared it's ugly head. I didn't find it initially when I was editing the video, and I'm still having problems finding it. The most upsetting part is that this particular evil frame appears to be random. My only hope is that I can get this production recorded on tape one time without this particularly sneaky evil frame returning.

The Rainbow Runner, when used with Ulead MSP5.2, is pretty amazing as a low cost capture card, but the problem it has with evil frames unfortunately ruins it's appeal for me. The RR is next to useless when used to output to tape because of this flaw. It's really a shame that Matrox never addressed the problem.

[mits]

Patrick,
I quite understand how you feel (angry, furious, betrayed by your RRS and whatever..). My projects usually last more than 30 minutes and I always print to tape. I have come over many times the situation that you’re describing (eliminate an evil frame but the video still vibrates) and the reason was that there were more than one evil frame within one second duration. I usually correct this problem by either putting a longer empty subtitle (duration more than 10 frames) or by getting rid of these frames (when the first solution fails).
I was always wondering if the “evil frame” is a hardware or a software (driver) problem that Matrox never fixed it. If it is a hardware problem then why the RRG does not suffer from this since (I think) both RRG and RRS use the same hardware (ie Zoran chipset)?


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mits

[mad99]

PATRICK:

I am not fooling you. Select open file from the menu. Then BEFORE choosing OK, select the "Open Popup..." just below the filename.

[Patrick]

mad99, please don't stop there! You're leaving me (and many other interested people) wondering what to do next. I found the "Pop up extended options" and "Use VirtualDub routines for MJPEG..." thanks to your instructions. Now what??? There are an awful lot of choices and options. Among other things, I tried selecting "Swap fields" and discovered that the video would stop playing at an "evil frame" when I used the play button that has red and green colors on it. So far, so good. However, whenever I tried to continue to play the clip (to find more evil frames), VirtualDub would crash.

Just what procedure do you or others use when trying to find evil frames using VirtualDub. Being told by ssn to simply use the "slider" unfortunately doesn't really help at all. Please give us more details. There probably are a lot of people such as myself who are not very familiar with VirtualDub who would appreciate a bit of coaching when trying to use this application. Thanks.

[mad99]

Sorry, this is the only option I have to select. I never tried any of the other options because everything works fine with just this one. The options in the upper half are all deselected. Interlaced frame mode is "normal".

This works fine for me...
Perhaps someone sends me a short video clip so that I can try it here. But please email me before sending the clips!